9:00 pm: Prosper has been officially waived, according to NBA.com’s transaction log.
3:50 pm: The Mavericks are waiving former first-round pick Olivier-Maxence Prosper and using the stretch provision on his $3MM cap hit, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
According to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link), the 6’8″ forward is expected to draw interest as an unrestricted free agent when he hits the open market in a couple days.
Dallas was reportedly trying to trade Prosper ahead of the 4:00 pm CT deadline to use the stretch provision. However, the Mavs were said to be reluctant to part with one of their two remaining second-rounders to shed Prosper’s salary, and instead will stretch it over three years, with annual cap hits of about $1MM through 2027/28.
The Mavericks will automatically decline their $5.3MM team option on Prosper for ’26/27 by releasing him.
Dallas needed to open up room under the second tax apron — at which the team is hard-capped — to re-sign Dante Exum, whose minimum-salary contract can now be finalized after being agreed to on July 2. Exum will essentially replace Prosper as the 15th standard contract on the team’s roster.
The 24th overall pick in the 2023 draft, Prosper has played a very limited role during his first two years in Dallas, averaging 3.5 points and 2.2 rebounds in 10.0 minutes per game across 92 regular season outings, with a .396/.260/.658 shooting line.
Prosper, who is from Montreal, also played 25 G League games with the Texas Legends as a rookie in 2023/24. The 23-year-old averaged 18.3 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 2.0 APG and 0.9 SPG on .498/.418/.762 shooting.
If you were in this situation, say Prosper never prospers in the NBA and is gone after this. Would you hate Dante Exum the rest of your life?
Or if someone else gives you a career ending injury on accident and you have to retire, would you hold some sort of feelings of spite or something else?
Kings could use you
Not saying Prosper was anything special, but Nico’s fascination with injury prone players (Exum) will have to be his downfall right?
He’s so fascinated with injury timebombs he traded the #1 future injury Embiid…..Luka Doncic.
This trade is almost like when ATL traded Dominique Wilkins for Danny Manning and picks (yes Flagg is a rookie)
Traded the face of the franchise
Now if Dallas or the Lakers win a championship then it’s a different story with the Luka n Flagg trade but right now it’s not a top 5 franchise alternative trade in NBA history. Luka n Flagg trade means nothing unless a title (just shows shady moves by Dallas and the NBA right now)
They can’t fail if Flagg is who people say he is. Even if AD gets injured, they can tank and get a high pick to pair with Flagg and will pretend that everything is fine. And then next year be somewhere in the play-in, or even outside of it, and trade their players away, but as long as Flagg is progressing, everything will be forgiven and forgotten, and ESPN will rank them high on the ‘most exciting young cores’ list, and folks will love it.
SA were going nowhere, their picks were not getting them anywhere and we’re mostly poor, Popovich overstayed his welcome for at least 5 years, possibly 10. And then they got Wemby, and everything is rosy, and everybody is praising them for how amazingly they are run.
Exum good fit for that team though, not disputing his injury history
Quality bigs are scarce these days; it’s a shame Dallas couldn’t find a way to develop him. Prosper is still young enough to have a chance in the NBA.
This guy is a small forward (perfect body) playing out of position at PF. 2 rebounds in 11 minutes isn’t good enough for a PF
A relatively young defensive SF who can play spot minutes at PF should get a look from someone
Did I understand correctly that if Prosper signs somewhere as a free agent, that salary is deducted from Dallas’ cap hit?
And Prosper is eligible for a two-way roster spot? If so, he might be heading to the Nets, who cleared a spot, if he cannot find a regular spot…
Not sure about the deduction. I think it works only if someone claims him on the waiver wire — thereby shouldering his existing contract without modifications.
If he clears waivers, signs a fresh contract with his choice of team, then the money is dead. Otherwise Milwaukee would be saved the cap hit from Dame’s deal, Dallas would be off JaVale McGee’s dead money, and Phoenix wouldn’t have Beal’s dead money.
As for the two-way… curious if Dallas would explore that option. Nembhard and Miles Kelly have two of the slots, but there is a third two-way open…
MIL got some reduction from Dame. They save about 11M (2.3M per year) off their tax bill. It isn’t space, but money saved AFTER the fact (at season’s end during calculations). 11M versus the 42M he signed for.
OMP isn’t going to command more than the minimum on the open market so it’s not going to affect DAL to a significant degree.
If Prosper were to sign a standard contract, a small amount of setoff would be applied to the Mavs’ cap hits. But it would be an extremely small amount, assuming he signs for the minimum.
Nets
Kings